Utah Legislature passes bill inserting UDOT oversight into Salt Lake City's local street grid. 

click to enlarge

• Benjamin Wood
• Rep. Kay Christofferson, top left, leads the discussion of a conference committee on SB195 on Thursday, March 6, 2025.

CAPITOL HILL—The bulk of Salt Lake City's local street grid will be subject to new levels of state scrutiny, and a pause on planned safety improvements, under a bill that passed the Utah Legislature on Thursday.

The House voted 61-9 and the Senate voted 20-2 for SB195, which requires Salt Lake City to prepare a new mobility plan and to obtain the formal approval of the Utah Department of Transportation before starting any work on a collector or arterial roadway that reduces the space available to drivers, or that impedes traffic flow in any way.

House and Senate representatives met in a conference committee early Thursday morning to hash out a 7th substitute version of SB195, which had deadlocked between the chambers after its sponsors inserted late amendments into the bill Tuesday night without fully explaining those changes to their legislative colleagues and misrepresenting the position of city and community stakeholders.

Thursday morning's changes largely reverted SB195 back to a 5th substitute draft that achieved a neutral position from City Hall, inserting the Utah Department of Transportation into decision making on city-owned roadways and launching a formal review of the capital's street improvement work, particularly those projects where redundant vehicle space was repurposed as landscaping, cycling lanes, walking paths and transit connections.

"We decided to go back to the language of dealing with arterials and collector highways—not just highway in general—so it limited the scope of plans that are made for the roadways and transportation throughout the city," Lehi Republican Rep. Kay Christofferson, the bill's House sponsor, said.

The 7th substitute also creates an "expedited review" of street improvement projects that are planned for the coming months, but not yet awarded to a contractor. This would allow for work to proceed on projects like the 300 West bikeway and 400 South Viaduct Trail—albeit with new and additional bureaucratic hurdles to clear. The bill also clarifies that only permanent street reconfiguration would be paused by SB195, not temporary lane reductions that accompany construction work or large events.

"Sometimes there’s events and we have to narrow or reduce the lanes or restrict travel," Christofferson said. "This only applies if its a permanent restriction."

SB195 started the legislative session as a broadly supported and noncontroversial package of adjustments to state transportation projects, an annual exercise known as the "omnibus" bill. But two weeks ago, Taylorsville Republican Sen. Wayne Harper shocked stakeholders by introducing amendments on the Senate floor that imposed a blanket moratorium on street improvement in Salt Lake City.

Harper provided only a cursory explanation of his amendments at the time, leading to a chamber vote that was initially unanimous. But Senate Democrats, after discovering the extent and severity of Harper's changes, moved to recast their votes as "no" on the legislation, tipping the first domino in what became two weeks of scrambled, and largely behind-the-scenes, negotiations around SB195.

Legislative leaders gave a series of confusing and at times contradictory explanations for the bill, at first noting the need to study traffic patterns around a planned redevelopment of the Delta Center and Salt Palace and later alluding to unnamed members of the "business community" who objected to traffic calming and pro-walkability efforts throughout the city. One of the bill's supporters, former Yalecrest Community Council chairwoman Janet Hemming, testified in committee that Salt Lake-based bike advocates are shamefully using documented pedestrian deaths to organize support for things like speed bumps and raised crosswalks, which are proven to reduce driving speeds and enhance safety for all roadway users.

"You are the only thing standing between my neighborhood and a terrible project that will place speed bumps on our quiet roads," Hemming told the House Transportation Committe, which does not include any members who represent Salt Lake City. "These bumps will cause traffic congestion and harmful emissions."

Andrew Wittenberg, a spokesperson for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, corroborated Christofferson's description of the final changes to the bill. He said the most common request to City Hall from residents is for more traffic calming on their neighborhood streets, and that the city has worked to strike a balance between meeting traffic-flow demands and designing streets that are safe for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.

"We are always happy to work with critical partners like UDOT, residents and our business communities," Wittenberg said. "However, the premise of this bill is yet another example this session of the state intervening in matters that are better addressed by those elected by city residents. We are grateful that the bill’s sponsors worked with us to narrow its scope.”

Leif Elder, a senior UDOT administrator, said that the highway department had not requested SB195, but had provided feedback to the sponsors on how it might be improved. He said the requirement to study two decade's worth of roadwork in Salt Lake City and review a new city-led "mobility plan" adds to the workload of UDOT, but that the bill includes up to $800,000 for the highway department to offset the personnel costs associated with SB195's mandates.

"Typically, we haven't micromanaged cities on what they do," Elder said.

The bill does not include any funding for Salt Lake City to offset the costs of preparing its mobility plan, nor for the costs involved in running planned projects through new rounds of expedited review.

Following Thursday's chamber votes, SB195 will now pass to Gov. Spencer Cox for his signature or veto.